Tremendous changes have been occurring in the Internet that influence our everyday lives. For example, online social networks have become the new meeting grounds. They have been called the new power lunch tables and new golf courses for business life in the U.S. Moreover, many people are using such online social networks to reconnect themselves to their friends, their neighborhood, their community, and to otherwise stay in touch.
However, with this technological society comes a myriad of mechanisms available to allow an individual to communicate with another individual. For example, people may select from such mechanisms as Instant Messaging (IM), audio telephone systems, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Short Messaging Service (SMS), email, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), or the like. Moreover, many of these mechanisms may be implemented using different user interface agents, many of which may employ different ways of managing contact addresses in their contact data stores.
The problem with having so many different mechanisms to communicate with another individual is that it may sometimes be difficult to determine which mechanism to use for a given individual. Moreover, a contact may be stored in address stores using different ways, including using a nickname, an alias, or virtually any other variation imaginable. Thus, it may also be difficult to locate the contact's address within any one of the myriad of address stores. Therefore, it is with respect to these considerations and others that the present invention has been made.